Stephens College is one of the 16 recipients of a Highway Construction Training Program grant through the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).
The grant will provide $300,000 for the school’s Women in Trades Construction Pre-Apprenticeship program to expand the highway construction training initiative.
“With this grant we’ll be able to tailor a very specific form of training,” said R. Scott Taylor, Founding Dean of Workforce Development and Continuing Studies at Stephens College.
Taylor founded the pre-apprenticeship program last year. It combines classroom instruction with paid training to support women in construction careers.
“We’re sitting right in the epicenter of the I-70 expansion project,” Taylor said. “Talking with the contractors that will be supplying that labor, there is a shortage of workforce elements to meet the demand that’s going to be coming up.”
The Women in Trades program works to address labor shortages while increasing female representation in skilled trades. Women currently make up less than 11% of the national construction workforce.
The Highway Construction Training Program is funded through the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and funds highway construction recruiting and training programs.
In December, the Federal Highway Administration announced $4.2 million in grants under the program. Other recipients include state departments of transportation and universities around the country.
Source: ColumbiaMissourian.com, Komu.com
